Bishop ibn al-Muʿtamir

Bischr ibn al-Muʿtamir , with full name Abū Sahl Bischr ibn al-Muʿtamir al-Hilālī ( Arabic ابو سهل بشر بن المعتمر الهلالي, DMG Bišr ibn al-Muʿtamir , d. 825 ) was a theologian of the early Muʿtazila and at the same time the founder of the Baghdad branch of this school. His followers are referred to as Bishrīya in Islamic doxography .

Life

Bischr came from a Persian family. Kufa , Baghdad or Basra are given differently as the place of birth . He was introduced to the Muʿtazilite doctrine in Basra by two disciples of Wāsil ibn ʿAtā ' (d. 748). He earned his living as a slave trader. During the caliphate of Hārūn ar-Raschīd , Bishr was in a close relationship with the Barmakid Fadl ibn Yahyā. As with some other Muʿtazilites, his theological orientation was combined with a political sympathy for the Alides . Because of this attitude he was imprisoned for a time by the Abbasid caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd. In 817 he reappears in the environment of the caliph al-Ma'mūn . He was one of the signatories of the document declaring the Alides ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ar-Ridā to be the heirs of the caliphate. As a court theologian he was in a rivalry with the Muʿtazilite Abū l-Hudhail , who finally ousted him at court around 820.

In contrast to the other Muʿtazilites, Bishr was also a poet. Two Qasīds have survived in the Kitāb al-Ḥayawān of al-Jāhiz . Bischr used the poetry primarily for the polemical refutation of opposing groups outside and inside Islam. He also attacked Muʿtazilite opponents like an-Nazzām in this way. In a booklet ( ṣaḥīfa ) he reflected on the socio-psychological foundations of successful argumentation. The text is quoted and commented on in another script by al-Jahiz. Otherwise no script from Bischr has survived. Like many other Muʿtazilites, Bishop never used hadiths in his argumentation , but always argued with the Koran .

Teaching

On the doctrinal level, Bishop was best known for his theory of tawallud ("generation"). This meant the triggering of chains of events through human actions. Using this concept, Bishop taught that whatever emerges from a person's action is also his action. In this way man was made a second author of change alongside God. Muhammad al-Schahrastani gives his teaching on this point, as follows, and again: "He believed that the color, the taste, the smell and all perception on the part of the ear and face possibly as anything by doing of a in the other Generated arises as soon as the causes of it came from doing it. " According to Abū l-Hasan al-Ashʿarī , Bishr drew the limits of the authorship of human activity in life and death alone. He lets him say: "The Creator has the power to give man power over colors, tastes, smells, heat and cold, moisture and dryness. He has already done this. However, he can by no means give them power over life and bestow death. "

Another central idea in his teaching was the idea of ​​divine grace ( luṭf ). It takes its starting point from the Koranic statement in sura 10:99: "And if your Lord wanted, those who are on earth would all become believers together." Bishop understood this to mean that God has unlimited freedom to lead people as believers on the path of salvation or to abandon them to disaster as unbelievers. If he leads them on the path of faith, he does so solely from a show of grace. But he is not obliged to show grace. Bishop also saw no duty with God to care for the most wholesome ( al-aṣlaḥ ), "because there would be no limit to what is in his power of the wholesome, so there would be no most wholesome thing about himself have". It is only God's duty to give man freedom of action and to remove the pretext for unbelief by sending prophets.

With regard to the atomism question, which was disputed among his Mutazilite colleagues, he abstained from judgment. In a later author he is quoted as saying: "We do not express ourselves about it and also do not know whether the division (the body) is finite or not; for both views have their weaknesses. Knowledge of this lies with God alone.

Politically, Bishop was Zaidit . As such, he was convinced of the superiority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib over all other companions of the Prophets . For him, ʿAlī's excellence resulted from a combination of different factors: early conversion to Islam ( sābiqa ), bravery and renunciation of the world.

Well-known students of Bishop were Abū Mūsā al-Murdār, Thumāma and Ahmad ibn Abī Duʾād, the chief Qādī of the caliph al-Mu'tasim bi-'llāh , who enforced the Mihna .

literature

• Albert N. Nader: Art. "Bi sh r ibn al-Muʿtamir" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. I, pp. 1243a-1244a.
• Josef van Ess : Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam . 6 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter 1991–97. Vol. III, pp. 107-130, Vol. V, pp. 283-328 (source texts in translation).
• Muhammad al-Schahrastani : Religious parties and schools of philosophers for the first time completely from d. Arab. trans. u. with declared Note vers. by Theodor Haarbrücker. 2 vols. Halle 1850–51. Vol. I, pp. 65-67. Digitized

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. van Ess III 112-114.
2. ↑ Cf. van Ess III 130.
3. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG III 115-121.
4. ^ Translation of Th. Haarbrücker in Religionspartheien p. 65.
5. ↑ Quotation in van Ess TuG V 303.
6. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG III 121-126.
7. ^ Cit. Al-Schahrastani, trans. Haarbrücker 67.
8. ↑ Cf. van Ess III 124.
9. ↑ Quoted in van Ess V 302.
10. ↑ Cf. van Ess III 129.